A new study by the utility indicates that charges are spread equitably between business and consumers this year but that consumers will account for a higher share of Dominion's revenues next year and even more in 2011.

Consumers should not be subsidizing commercial and small industrial customers, said Ohio Consumers' Counsel Janine Migden-Ostrander. Her office has asked the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to re-open the case and separate business rates from residential rates. The city of Cleveland and allied consumer groups joined in the petition.

Dominion revenue

(in millions of dollars)

Residential

$241 in 2009

$250 in 2010

$261 in 2011

Non-residential

$39 in 2009

$30 in 2010

$18 in 2011

The new rate structure, approved by the PUCO last October, works this way: Consumers and business customers now pay a service charge of $12.50 per month and $2.47 for every Mcf delivered, down from $2.90 per Mcf last year. Next year, the monthly service charge is scheduled to increase to $15.40 and the rate per Mcf to decrease to about $2.

The PUCO may allow the fixed service charge to jump to more than $19 per month in late 2011 and the rate per Mcf to slide well under $2.

The charge for the gas itself is additional to the service and delivery charges.

The consumers' counsel argues that the rate structure is unfair because commercial and small industrial customers use much more gas, up to 3,000 Mcf per year, than households, which average 100 Mcf. Since there are many more households than businesses, each paying the fixed monthly charge, households will account for a larger share of Dominion's income.

Dominion's new rate structure actually reduces the total monthly delivery charges of consumers who burn a lot of gas and increases the bills of those who use less.

Even Dominion seems open to separating business rates from consumers'.

The study's findings "suggest that a more equitable assignment of costs" by splitting the class into residential and non-residential customers, Dominion's lawyer, David Kutik of Jones Day, wrote in comments attached to the report.

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